The Flow of Things
by i am a bee
Summary: 220ish: "And this is how it is that you come to be standing so stupidly in front of him, why it is that you do the only thing that you can do in this moment, which is to leave him, to walk out of his loft and away from him without even once looking back."
1. Chapter 1

You regret them the second they are out of your mouth, but there isn't any stopping them. The words and syllables, broken down into fragments of almost nothing—only morphemes and phonemes at their most fundamental—trickle out of your mouth slowly at first, like a faulty faucet, but soon morph into an impenetrable torrent of meaning and resolve that rushes out against your better judgement. And before you have the good sense to repair the leak, to staunch the flow of things you shouldn't and wouldn't have otherwise said, you have a full-fledged flood on your hands and it is too late to take action, because you've _said_ them. Once they push forth past the usual barrier of your lips and go alone into the world, there is nothing you can do to retrieve them. They have marched most arrogantly out of your mouth one after each other until they are _all_ out there and he almost certainly believes them. The acknowledgement that you have impatiently sought for months has arrived, for brows come together over darkened eyes narrowed in confusion, suspicion, and his lips part as his mouth falls open, almost imperceptibly. It happens quickly, but it's there. You're certain now. He has heard you, at last.

If you'd have blinked, you'd have missed it, and you wish to God that you would have.

But you didn't, so you are struck down by the realisation that this isn't what you wanted at all, and the water rises more and more quickly until it is up around your ears. Even though you have temporarily lost your footing and the lungful of reality you have ingested is salty and burns your throat; the poetry of what it is to drown in a deluge of your own foolishness is not lost on you. You want nothing more in this moment than for him to save you like he has a hundred times before but you know with certainty that it's not in the cards for you. He isn't going to ask you to stay. And this is how it is that you come to be standing so stupidly in front of him, why it is that you do the only thing that you _can _do in this moment, which is to leave him, to walk out of his loft and away from him without even once looking back.

You go to Ethan, like you always do when he doesn't give you what you want, and are disappointed to find that this time he isn't able to give it to you, either. And when his condescension and his scorn get to be too much for you, like _they _always do, you leave him and go back to the place you fled only hours before because it's the only home you have. It isn't dark like you expect it to be when you get there and you can't believe that he's home, that he's not out fucking every trick within a fifty mile radius to prove to himself that he doesn't care. He's awake in the bed you've spent the last two years making love in and he watches you strip your clothes from your moonlit body, lifting the covers when you wait at the foot of the bed, not exactly certain what he wants from you. You go to him not because he wants you to but because there isn't anywhere else for you to go.

When he presses his tense body against your back, it's not like it was before. There are rules now, rules on which you'd insisted. He hasn't given you any of the things that you want, but he's never broken a single one, which, although is more than you can say for yourself, isn't enough. Because he doesn't love you in the way that you've loved him almost from the moment you first saw him. If he did—if he _truly_ did—he'd give you what you want. There's no other explanation for it, except the unthinkable, the one that's been poisoning what you have with him for weeks:

He doesn't really love you.

So consumed are you by this infectious, illogical conviction that you are able to pass over the significance of what it means for him to share his life with another human being in any way at all, the ways that he already has changed for you. You don't notice the way his meandering hands finger the pulse along the underside of your arm, stroke the goose bumps roused by the cool night air on your skin. You miss out on the way that his rigid posture slumps into you, the way that a sliver of worry—one among many—melts away because he is able to comfort himself at the very least with the fact that you have come back to him.

If only for one more night.

And it _is _breaking your heart to lie there in his arms, but not for any of the reasons that it should. It doesn't exactly help you sleep at night, this vain attempt at excusing your behaviour, but it's a start. Because you don't see any of it at all, how very much he loves you. And it's not that you won't, because God only knows how much you want to.

It's that you can't.


	2. Chapter 2

You're surprised that you don't notice them come in because you've developed a nasty little habit of oversensitivity to the distance between you at all times. The last two years of listening to his incessant chatter have left you with an intimate knowledge of the way his voice sounds, innumerable fucks a perfect map of his features and the proportions of his body beneath your wandering hands. But today, for the first time in a very long time, he somehow manages to slip in beneath your radar. You have no idea that he is seated—_they_ are seated—in a booth near the door, less than thirty feet away from you. You're not in your usual seat because the diner had been busy when you'd come in and you'd been forced to take a seat with your back to the door. The New York Times is open in front of you and you're scanning the competition like you have done for as long as you can remember, and even more obsessively in the last year since your departure to Manhattan has been postponed indefinitely. There is a plate of whole wheat toast in front of you, long since abandoned, having grown cold in the mid-November air that has rushed in through the door with the arrival and departure of new and leaving patrons. As far as you know, it's a Saturday morning like any other.

You don't notice the clamour that gradually swells on the opposite side of the diner and you are similarly oblivious to the sudden hush that falls over the other customers as the argument between the two young men near the door grows more and more heated. It isn't until it has escalated into a full-blown yelling match that the goings-on in the diner enter your consciousness and you look up at long last only just in time to hear your name.

"It was one stupid mistake! Look how many times you forgave _Brian_."

Justin rises to his feet angrily and begins pulling his jacket on, not bothering to wind the striped scarf in his hands around the sliver of pale neck that is exposed at the top of his collar. He leans in towards him, the dark-haired man whose name you can't be bothered to remember, his voice quiet with controlled rage.

"I _never _forgave Brian."

And yanking his messenger bag from his recently vacated seat, he pushes past a couple of lesbians in the doorway and heads out into the cold.

You know exactly where he's going , so you don't bother to follow him. He's going the same place he always goes when you let him down, when nothing you do is ever enough for him.

What you don't know is exactly how many times he's gone there since he left you or that it's where _he_ goes when he wants you most.


End file.
